the breath that passed from me to you
by Strange Ink
Summary: He ran into her in the cereal aisle at the supermarket. She was trying to reach a box of Frosted Flakes on the top shelf, but even on the tip toes of her bright yellow converse, she wasn't quite tall enough. (trigger warning: mention of major character death)


**notes:** This is a pretty rare pairing I know, and I don't even ship them really hard (my otp will always and forever be sterek lbr) but there's something between their dynamic that I think is interesting to look at and explore. This is also up on ao3, as is all my work. You can check my profile for the link as well as the link to my tumblr where you should come say hi and talk to me about Derek Hale.

* * *

Derek wasn't sure how he ended up spending so much time with Kira. They'd defeated the nogitsune, won their war, and all let out a long tired sigh before drifting apart into their own grief. It didn't feel like a victory, not when they'd lost Allison.

Derek hadn't been close to her, but even he felt the weight of her passing like a stone in his stomach. But Derek was familiar with this kind of pain. He added it to the list of things to be be mournful about -the things he pushed away until he tried to fall asleep at night and they invaded his thoughts, his dreams.

When it came down to it though, this was not his loss. Not the way it was Scott's loss, and Isaac's. Or Stiles, or Lydia. He didn't see any of them for weeks afterwards. Their scents faded from his loft and now the only people he could smell on his furniture were him and his uncle. They needed time to grieve, he knew that more than anyone, but he hated this separation from his pack.

* * *

He ran into her in the cereal aisle at the supermarket. She was trying to reach a box of Frosted Flakes on the top shelf, but even on the tip toes of her bright yellow converse, she wasn't quite tall enough.

And Derek was a gentleman, regardless of what the rest of the pack might say about that, so he went to her rescue, grabbing the box with ease and handing it over. She smiled up at him, eyes bright like she was truly happy to see him. Not many people looked at Derek like that, and certainly not recently. The only person he'd had regular contact with lately was Peter who always looked bored and mildly disappointed about life.

"Thanks!" she said, dropping the cereal into her basket which was filled various snack food and a truly impressive crown of broccoli.

"No problem," he said, tentatively returning her smile.

He didn't know Kira all that well. They'd worked together before, but trying to hunt down evil and defeat demon assassins wasn't the best circumstances to become familiar with someone. He couldn't even remember her last name.

"How have you been?" she asked, her smile fading a bit, her nervousness making her heart speed up just a little. She was talking about Allison, not sure how close he was to her and how receptive he was going to be to the question.

He couldn't imagine being her right now, in a new town, bombarded by family secrets as well as the secrets of Beacon Hills, inheriting so much power, and making new friends only to have them drift away in their mourning. Kira hadn't known Allison all that well.

And now he could see it, a loneliness behind her eyes. It was a look he was familiar with, having seen it staring back at him in the mirror for years after the fire.

"I'm okay," he said, realizing he had gotten a bit lost in his thoughts and she was just staring at him, shifting her feet tried to make his expression soft to reassure her, but he wasn't sure how well he was succeeding.

"Good, that's good I-" she dropped off, her heartbeat speeding up again. She was so nervous, being so careful. He imagined she'd been tiptoeing around people for weeks. He wondered if she'd also been sitting home alone and staring at her ceiling, separated and sad for her friends.

"You should come over sometime," he found himself saying."To the loft. We could watch movies or something. I have the Avengers." He glanced down at her comic book leggings and smiled.

Her relief was instant, her smile back in full force. "I'd like that a lot, yeah."

"Shoot me a text whenever, I'm almost always home."

They exchanged phone numbers and he found out her last name was Yukimura. He committed it to memory. She was a part of the pack now, after all.

* * *

She came over that Saturday and they watched the Avengers and ordered pizza. Peter sat on the loveseat and watched with them, every now and then providing commentary on the merits of Loki and his villainy. When the pizza arrived he wrinkled his nose at it, declared their order of Hawaiian with extra pineapple to be an atrocity to the entire pizza industry, and left for something "more suitable for human consumption."

Derek pointed out that none of them were in fact human, to which he received nothing but a scowl and a door slam. Kira giggled at the whole scene and then promptly filled her plate with three overloaded slices of their culinary atrocity.

They finished watching the movie, occasionally making a comment about the script or the special effects. When they got the the end Kira picked up the remote and fast forwarded through the credits to the shawarma scene at the end, and then dissolved into a fit of laughter.

Derek couldn't help it, something about her laugh was infectious, and he found himself laughing along with her, not sure if it was because of the scene or because of her over-the-top reaction to it. Either way it was suddenly the funniest thing in the world.

The screen went black the laughter between them died down and for a minute they both just sat there, smiles lingering on their faces and the mostly eaten box of pizza between them.

"I should get going," she said finally.

"I've got Captain America, if you want to come back tomorrow," he offered. It wasn't like he was doing anything, and he could tell that she had enjoyed the company as much as he had.

"That sounds awesome," she agreed, pushing herself up off the couch and reaching for her shoes, which she had discarded awhile ago. He let her take home the rest of the pizza and when he collapsed into his bed later that night he slept better than he had in weeks.

* * *

Kira came over regularly after that. They didn't talk about supernatural stuff or Allison or Scott. Sometimes Peter was around when she arrived, but he always left soon after, off to do whatever mildly sociopathic ex-alpha werewolves do. They watched movies, ate take out food, talked about comics and books, and even played scrabble which she had brought over. She'd pulled it out of her backpack with a grin.

"You seem like the kind of person who likes a good game of scrabble."

Returning her smiles was easy at this point, he even found himself smiling more when she wasn't around. "I definitely am."

"Do you keep points?"

"Of course."

She seemed pleased at that and set the game up on the coffee table, cartons of lo mein and crab rangoons pushed aside. Kira won twice but Derek crushed her in the third game with the word "exonerate" on a triple word score.

After that they watched The Mummy and Kira fell asleep with her head on Derek's shoulder. He went to sleep with the scent of her still stuck to him.

For all the hanging out they did, they never left the loft. The always ordered in or Derek made them burgers or pasta, and their activities primarily consisted of movies, scrabble, and the occasional game of Mario Kart.

So when Kira suggested they go out to her favourite sushi restaurant (after being thoroughly offended that Derek had never _had_ sushi) it had come as a bit of a surprise. And Derek could tell by the way her pulse spiked that she realized what she was suggesting.

He also realized how ridiculous it was that she was nervous. They were friends. They just happened to be friends who were also social recluses when they hung out. That didn't mean they couldn't go out into the world like normal friends surely did.

"Absolutely," he said, going for his jacket, easing the worn leather garment over his shoulders. Kira looked at him and then glanced down at her own leather jacket -a stylish piece with a diagonal zipper and a studded collar.

"We look like we're in a biker gang," she giggled.

"A biker gang of two? That doesn't sound very threatening."

"Oh no," she joked, "you're not threatening at all." She brought her fingers up to make it look like she had fangs and then giggled some more.

Derek rolled his eyes and pushed her out the door.

* * *

Sushi was more to Derek's liking than he thought it would be, much to Kira's delight. And sitting together at the restaurant was nice, the conversation between them easy. It was a pretty casual place and they spent their meal lounging in a back booth, feet stretched out under the table to rest on the opposite seats, and throwing crumpled up napkins at each other.

By the time they left it was getting close to ten and Kira was yawning. "I feel like an old lady," she complained. "Who knew lacrosse practice would be so tiring?"

"What, no extra stamina kitsune powers to help get you through it?"

"Even with it I'm wiped. I can't imagine how humans do this. Finstock is brutal."

That Derek definitely believed, he'd seen him at some of the games the year before.

He dropped Kira off at her house and even waited until she had disappeared through the front door before driving away. It wasn't until he was halfway back to the loft that he realized they had essentially just gone on a date.

* * *

Derek was nervous when Kira came over next, sure that it was going to be awkward now. She'd had this thing for Scott right? But she never smelled of him when they hung out, so he wasn't sure that was still happening. He didn't want to mess up their friendship, he liked hanging out with her, liked seeing her backpack leaning against the couch and her shoes left randomly across the floor. He liked that the couch didn't just smell like him and Peter anymore.

But she'd seemed fine last night at dinner, and she hadn't been weird in the car. Was he overreacting? He was probably overreacting. That didn't keep his hands from clamming up a bit though and twitching his foot as it got closer to the time Kira's lacrosse practice let out.

His worrying was for nothing though. He heard her before she came through the door of course, but was relieved when he actually saw the usual smile on her face. Everything was fine. They were fine.

* * *

It was a week later that Kira kissed him. In the days leading up to it they'd taken to leaning against each other on the couch while they watched their movie of the day and hugging when she left.

The credits for the first Lara Croft movie were rolling on the tv screen and Kira was tucked into the crook of Derek's shoulder, his arm draped over her. He wasn't really sure when during the movie this had happened, but it was nice and the warm weight of her body against his was comfortable. They didn't say anything for a few moments, just watching the words scroll by, content in their companionship, and it wasn't until the last production logo had disappeared that Kira looked up at him.

He met her gaze, struck by how dark her eyes looked in the low light of his living room. They smiled at each other and when she leaned up to press her lips to his it felt like the most natural thing in the world.

He let her lead the kiss, yielding under her softness, determined to let her be in control of this. She tasted like tic-tacs and the tacos they'd had for dinner but he didn't mind. It was so very _her_.

And when she combed her fingers through his hair, her tongue sweeping his lower lip, he knew he was gone. Whatever this was between the two of them, he wanted it. He wanted her laughter filling his space, her scent clinging to his clothes, her things strewn about like she lived here. And he wanted to go for sushi again, and maybe even see a movie in a theater, with popcorn and everything.

When they finally separated Kira was smiling at him, that wide delighted grin that he had come to know so well.

"I'll see you tomorrow?" she asked.

"Yeah, tomorrow."


End file.
